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A thought by Mark Batterson (2009-12-09) from his
book, Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity (Kindle Location 1411). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition. I love
the opportunity to explore. I am
fortunate to have been given the opportunity to see what other places are
like. I have lived on both coast and in
the South and the North. I was almost
born in a car. The only state I haven’t
been to is Alaska. I love to explore. Margaret
and I are headed into a new experience. We
are moving from Long Island in New York to Seminole, Florida. I have already lived in Seminole but I have
never lived in my own home. That for us
is a new adventure. I have already
explored Home Depot as a homeowner. That
is a different experience than visiting it as renter. There is more you can do in your own home. But
the wonder of exploring God’s creating is a way to glorify Him. Psalm
121.1 & 2 is one of my life verses. The
Message interprets it this way, “I look
up to the mountains; do…

A thought by Miles McPherson (2009-11-01) from his
book, DO Something!: Make Your Life Count (Kindle Location 332). Baker Books. Kindle Edition. Well
today is the day that we celebrate love, at least the emotional part of
love. The truth is that is what we view
as the definition of what love is but it is really more than that. When
I was young I had a weird idea about love.
I didn’t want to cheapen it so I made a self-commitment to when I told
that someone that I loved them, the next question would be, will you marry
me? I told two ladies that and asked
them both THE question and I got it right on the second one. I made my lifetime commitment to Margaret Ann
Fletcher on November 9, 1974 in Maud, Ohio Wesleyan Church. We have said that we have never contemplated
divorce, murder, yes. We have been
married 37 years – 34 good ones and 3 bad ones.
Those
3 years were what I call my jerk time but Margaret held on and we made it
through. In every marriage there will be
tough times and …

A thought by Miles McPherson (2009-11-01) in his
book, DO Something!: Make Your Life Count (Kindle Location 1006). Baker Books. Kindle Edition. God
wants us to meet the needs of those around us.
That is one of the parts of being created in God’s image that we so many
times miss because of our self-focus. He
is here to meet our needs and that is one of our purposes as Brian Moll, my
pastor said yesterday. Margaret
and I are moving to Florida for one reason.
When God made it clear to me that I was going to Florida to help in
meeting the needs of a widow in our family, my mother, then everything fell into
place. It is unbelievable how God has worked everything out. That is the first reason for our going but there are also so many benefits: close to my brother, sister and brother-in-law, warm weather, the
Gulf, our own condo, and other purposes. One purpose comes because we are moving into a 55 and older community.
What a tremendous opportunity to make a difference. Now
we could just…

A thought by Steven Pressfield (2010-08-30) from his
book, The War Of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle (p. 7). PREMIERE. Kindle Edition. Whenever
you make a commitment to do something to better yourself or someone else there
is always going to be a challenge to start and also to keep doing it. It will be a daily struggle. Now
if it is to go to Disney World then you are wide awake and ready to go way
before you need to get up. But if you
are in your fifth month of working there it takes an alarm to get you up and
most people wait till the last moment to get up and go. It is always easier to get up to do fun than
it is to do work. I have
always said that we do what we want to do.
When someone used the excuse to me as a Pastor that they couldn’t make
it to church because they were up late I would then say to myself, “We do what
we want to do.” If they were going to Disney
World they wouldn’t use that excuse because they want to go to Disney World. Now
that to me is the key to ov…

A thought by Steven Pressfield (2010-08-30) from his
book, The War Of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle. PREMIERE. Kindle Edition. I usually
write this blog in a Starbucks right after I have done my daily walking. I have put it into a routine that helps me to
do it. Now today my routine was a little
off and I almost said, “I won’t write today”. There
are so many things in life that it’s not the doing that is difficult but the
starting. My walking was one of
those. I knew I needed to exercise, I needed
to lose weight but I didn’t start until my wife found out she had diabetes and
she needed to change her diet and to exercise so I did it with her. Now because of different schedules I do it by
myself but it is a part of my six day a week routine. It is not an option. Now
it is good to have choices. But there
are some things you just need to do. One
of those areas for my family was going to church every weekend. It was not an option we just did it. Of course my father was a mini…

A thought by Mark Batterson (2009-12-09) from his
book, Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity(Kindle Locations 1457-1458). Random House, Inc.. Kindle
Edition. I lived
in so many different places in the United States. I have been to 49 States. At some point I will make it to Alaska. But I have loved living and exploring
everyplace I have lived. I lived
in Las Vegas, Nevada for 15 years and I loved to go to Zion National Park. Whenever people would come to Vegas to see us
if they had a few days we would take the 2 hour drive and go see this beautiful
Canyon. I loved it but there were so
many of my friends who had lived in Vegas all their life who had never been
there. What a waste. I live
now on Long Island, a 45 minute train ride from New York City. I know people who have lived here all their
life and have never been to the Thanksgiving Day Parade. They have never experienced the excitement of
those balloons because it is too crowded.
They missed it. I lived
in Long…

A thought by Mark Batterson (2011-01-18) from his
book, Soulprint: Discovering Your Divine
Destiny (pp. 47-48). Multnomah Books. Kindle Edition. In your
time of depression are you remembering what God has done for you in the past,
thanking Him for all His blessings? In your
time of loneliness are you remembering that He will never leave you or forsake
you? In your time of fear are you
remembering that perfect love casts out all fear? In your time of worrying are you remembering that
God is greater than anything you are facing?
In your time of guilt are you remembering that God forgives? In your time of wandering and wondering are
you remembering that if you trust Him He will make your way straight? Look
at your mood. That will tell you what
you are remembering and what you are forgetting. What
are you remembering?

A thought by Erwin Raphael McManus from his book, Chasing Daylight: Seize the Power of Every Moment (Kindle Location 595). Kindle Edition. I just
have had a tremendous valuable time for 1 ½ hours. First of all I walked. That is making a difference in my
health. I am 64 and I decided a few
years back that I didn’t want to be an invalid so I started eating healthier and
started walking. That has been of
benefit to me. Then today I listened to
2 messages by Robert Morris who is the Lead Pastor of the Gateway Church in
Austin, Texas. The messages were on prayer. They challenged me and gave me new insight on this tremendous subject. But if all I did
was to walk and then to listen I would have been helped but it would have
been all for me. My world was changed
but that was all if I didn’t do something.
The
first thing I did was to pray. I took
what God had taught me through Robert Morris and came back to
pray for some situations that I had let up on praying for. The work isn’t d…

A thought by Miles McPherson (2009-11-01). DO Something!: Make Your Life Count
(Kindle Locations 1024-1025). Baker Books. Kindle Edition.
God gives us each day to live, not
endure. It is our choice.
Because I have a relationship with God and I believe in a
big God and I believe He knows what He is doing then I believe He built today
for me for a reason. That is living life
with confidence with faith. So what is
there to learn today, what is there to do today and who is there for me to
encourage today? That is what living life is all about. “This
is the day the Lord has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm
118:24 (NKJV)
So what is your choice for today, living or enduring?

A thought by Darren Whitehead and Jon Tyson
(2011-07-19) from their book, Rumors of God: Experience the Kind of Faith You´ve Only Heard About (Kindle Locations
362-363). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. Millions
of people tomorrow at 6:30 pm will stop for a few hours to watch an event that
will change people’s desires and needs. Yes
some will be watching the Super Bowl for the football but many more will be
watching for the commercials. I used to watch the World Series to see the new car designs for Ford, General Motors
and Chrysler introduced. I remember when
Ford introduced the Edsel and when Chrysler came out with those big fins. Yes sports and advertising go together. Now
if we can just watch all those commercials and not get hooked then it would be
OK but we will watch and then want even when we have more of that particular
item than we really need. Right
now I am sitting in a Starbucks writing this after I have just walked for 1 ½ hours. I got here at 8:00 am and there was a l…

A thought by Miles McPherson, (2009-11-01) from his
book, DO Something!: Make Your Life Count (Kindle Locations 1018-1019). Baker Books. Kindle Edition.
I am writing on my other blog,bill’s front porch, about
what James in his New Testament book says about patience. It is what we as a family need right
now. I like what Margaret, my wife has
been saying, our plans are written in pencil.
We have changed our plans over and over in the last few
months about when Margaret and I are going to load up the U-Haul with all our
stuff here in Oceanside, New York and head down to our condo in Seminole,
Florida. The truth is each time we made
the plans they seemed like a good idea until the day we changed them. There were different things out of our
control that needed to fall into place for our plans to happen but the truth is
they weren’t out of God’s control. We may
not see the why now but down the road we will see that the time we finally did
it was perfect. That is why my future is
in …

A thought by Erwin Raphael McManus from his book, Chasing Daylight: Seize the Power of Every Moment (Kindle Locations 440-441). Kindle Edition. So much
teaching has been on the don’t that we lose sight of the do. Christ died on the Cross to forgive us for
the don’ts so we could do the dos. That
is Good News. I am now free of the guilt
of my sin so I can be free now to do the purpose for which God created me to do. Now
in living the holy victorious life we deal with the cleansing part but too many
times we forget the empowering part. God
wants to empower us though His Spirit to make a difference for Him and with Him
in the world we live in. Yes we need the
Holy Spirit to cleanse us of that self-centeredness that we were born with and then to fill us with Himself, with His love which empowers us to fulfill His reason for creating us. We
need to ask for Christ’s forgiveness of our wrongs, our sins and to ask the
Holy Spirit to cleanse us from the reason for doing the wrong, our si…

A thought by Miles McPherson, (2009-11-01) in his
book, DO Something!: Make Your Life Count (Kindle Location 424). Baker Books. Kindle Edition. That
is truly a God thing, to have that perspective in our lives, that God is out ahead working things out for us. Now of course that isn’t true of
everyone. It is only true of those who
have a relationship with God through Jesus.
Now
let’s say that this perspective is just what you needed to hear, to believe
today. This is exactly what you needed
today. During my time of prayer I prayed
that God would show me what thought needed to be shared today for some
particular person who would read this today.
God wanted to speak to you personally and He was going to use today’s
blog to do that. Now you come across it
somewhere but you decide to not click on it and read it so then you wouldn’t have
benefited from the thought that God had provided for you personally today. in order to receive the benefit you had to do something. God has so much th…